S Is for Space

Across the hall, Tom actually taking a shower.

Far off in the bumble-bee dragon-fly light, whose voice was already cursing the weather, the time, and the tides? Mrs. Goodbody? Yes. That Christian giantess, six feet tall with her shoes off, the gardener extraordinary, the octogenarian-dietitian and town philosopher.

He rose, unhooked the screen, and leaned out to hear her cry:

“There! Take that! This’ll fix you! Hah!”

“Happy Saturday, Mrs. Goodbody!”

The old woman froze in clouds of bug spray pumped from an immense gun.

“Nonsense!” she shouted. “With these fiends and pests to watch for?”

“What kind this time?” called Fortnum.

“I don’t want to shout it to the jaybirds, but—” she glanced suspiciously around—“what would you say if I told you I was the first line of defense concerning Flying Saucers?”

“Fine,” replied Fortnum. “There’ll be rockets between the worlds any year now.”

“There already are!” She pumped, aiming the spray under the hedge. “There! Take that!”

He pulled his head back in from the fresh day, somehow not as high-spirited as his first response had indicated. Poor soul, Mrs. Goodbody. Always the very essence of reason. And now what? Old age?

The doorbell rang.

He grabbed his robe and was half down the stairs when he heard a voice say, “Special Delivery. Fortnum?” and saw Cynthia turn from the front door, a small packet in her hand.

He put his hand out, but she shook her head.

“Special Delivery Air Mail for your son.”

Tom was downstairs like a centipede.

“Wow! That must be from the Great Bayou Novelty Greenhouse!”

“I wish I were as excited about ordinary mail,” observed Fortnum.

“Ordinary?!” Tom ripped the cord and paper wildly. “Don’t you read the back pages of Popular Mechanics? Well, here they are!”

Everyone peered into the small open box.

“Here,” said Fortnum, “what are?”

“The Sylvan Glade Jumbo-Giant Guaranteed Growth Raise-Them-in-Your-Cellar-for-Big-Profit Mushrooms!”

“Oh, of course,” said Fortnum. “How silly of me.”

Cynthia squinted. “Those little teeny bits—?”

“‘Fabulous growth in twenty-four hours,’” Tom quoted from memory. “‘Plant them in your own cellar—’”

Fortnum and wife exchanged glances.

“Well,” she admitted, “it’s better than frogs and green snakes.”

“Sure is!” Tom ran.

“Oh, Tom,” said Fortnum, lightly.